"The Return to Fort Wrangell 



dians, who were on their way to Fort Wrangell, some 

 six men and about the same number of women. The 

 men were sitting in a bark hut, handsomely reinforced 

 and embowered with fresh spruce boughs. The wo- 

 men were out at the side of a stream, washing their 

 many bits of calico. A little girl, six or seven years 

 old, was sitting on the gravelly beach, building a play- 

 house of white quartz pebbles, scarcely caring to stop 

 her work to gaze at us. Toyatte found a friend among 

 the men, and wished to encamp beside them for the 

 night, assuring us that this was the only safe harbor 

 to be found within a good many miles. But we re- 

 solved to push on a little farther and make use of the 

 smooth weather after being stormbound so long, much 

 to Toyatte and his companion's disgust. We rowed 

 about a couple of miles and ran into a cozy cove where 

 wood and water were close at hand. How beautiful 

 and homelike it was! plushy moss for mattresses 

 decked with red cornel berries, noble spruce standing 

 guard about us and spreading kindly protecting arms. 

 A few ferns, aspidiums, polypodiums, with dewberry 

 vines, coptis, pyrola, leafless huckleberry bushes, and 

 ledum grow beneath the trees. We retired at eight 

 o'clock, and just then Toyatte, who had been at- 

 tentively studying the sky, presaged rain and another 

 southeaster for the morrow. 



The sky was a little cloudy next morning, but the 

 air was still and the water smooth. We all hoped that 

 Toyatte, the old weather prophet, had misread the 

 sky signs. But before reaching Point Vanderpeut the 

 rain began to fall and the dreaded southeast wind to 



[ 191 I 



